


Behold, I Make All Things New

by silveradept



Category: Chronicles of Narnia - C. S. Lewis
Genre: Book: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, Gen, Pain, Torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-20
Updated: 2013-02-20
Packaged: 2018-05-15 03:41:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,397
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5769907
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/silveradept/pseuds/silveradept
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Eustace describes to Edmund how he was transformed back into a human from his dragon form at the paws of the Lion God.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Behold, I Make All Things New

Eustace sighed as he started. "I was asleep with the usual contingent of heat-seekers when it started. You know that feeling when you pop awake in the middle of the night and are sure something important just happened, if only your mind could remember it?" Edmund nodded. "It was like that, only this time, I saw a lion, illuminated on a dark night when he should have been covered in shadow. He beckoned me with a paw, and I had the surest sense that I needed to follow him. I don't think he actually spoke, but it was pretty clear what he wanted."

Eustace flexed his fingers, staring at the spot on his wrist where the bracelet had been up until recently. "I thought moving away from the people propped up against me would have woken them, but they all just slumped down onto the sand and kept snoring."

"And you followed the lion?" Edmund half-smiled.

"I didn't have much choice. I'm not entirely sure I was in control of myself at that point. I was a big Dragon, but something about the lion made me feel very small and very afraid.

After a while, we came to a walled garden that I am certain didn't exist on the island until right then. I've gotten every inch of this land, and there were no walled gardens, or any sign of a civilization, anywhere. I thought I saw something with a sword made of fire as a sentry, but it disappeared before I got close enough to really see. The lion went in, and I followed."

Eustace shifted uncomfortably in his seat. "The garden had a pool inside, fed by a fountain. The lion raised a paw and pointed at the water. And then I heard it - a sound not unlike what a person would sound like if they were using a lion's roar to speak." Edmund nodded and shivered. That voice was all too familiar to him.

"It told me I had to undress before I could bathe. No, undress is the wrong word. Bare myself, maybe. Anyway, I was still not sure what to do, and so I scratched my head out of habit, and I came off with a claw full of scales. So, I scratched my arm, experimentally, and more scales came off. If this was what the lion meant, then I could do that. I scratched and worked and used whatever was there to flake off every scale I had on my body. And that felt good, like I was finally shedding some part of my self. Unfortunately, I couldn't get to the scales under the bracelet, but I thought it would be good enough.

When I finished, I started toward the pool, but almost as fast as I had been able to shed the scales, they regenerated, spreading out from the bracelet, twice as big and with enough pain that I cried out. I don't know if that sparked some sort of compassion in him, but he came over while I was still recovering."

"'Poor Eustace', he said. 'It appears that the bracelet has already taken up residence in your soul rot.' I had no idea what he was talking about, but that it sounded vaguely offensive, and apparently he can read dragon expressions. 'Everyone's soul has some rot in it - even me, because we do things that are bad to achieve good results.'

'The enchantment on the bracelet is meant to seek out your rot, transform you into something else, and then steadily goad you into things that will produce more rot, until it can take over completely. The being that fashioned it for Lord Octesian - hello, by the way -' and the lion looked over my shoulder at something I couldn't see, ' - meant for it as a punishment for his greed and inability to look after the welfare of his people. A lesson, I presume, he finally learned, as the bracelet let him die and passed on to you. I had hoped it would be Caspian who found it, but I miscalculated - sloth is also apparently one of his vices. Since you had a little rot already, I'm guessing, the bracelet attached to you anyway.'

And then he came up to me, really close, and he told me the only way to get the bracelet off of me was that he would have to go into my soul and cut off all the rot. I asked him if it was going to hurt. And he looked at me, and I couldn't tell whether he was sad or whether he was enjoying himself, and he said 'Oh yes, Eustace, it will hurt. It will hurt more than you have ever experienced. You will think you have died. You will think that dying is preferable to this' - Are you okay?"

Edmund stopped violently shivering at the question from his cousin, appearing to return to the here and now from somewhere very far away. "Oh, yes, Eustace. I was just...remembering."

"The Stone Table? I can stop, if you want." There was a note of empathy in Eustace's voice that Edmund hadn't believed his cousin could actually muster until he heard it.

"No. Aslan told me once that stories had to be told, start to finish, without editing or softening, if they were to be effective. I can deal with my own memories. I...envy Peter right now. He never seemed to be bothered by all of the horrible things that happened around us and to us. Although, the more I stay here in Narnia, the more I wonder whether Peter not being affected was him being effective at the big brother act or whether Peter never actually felt anything for anyone else. I'll have to ask Susan about it the next time I see her." 

"I'm sorry, Edmund. I didn't realize..." 

"Keep going, Eustace. The truth is, only Lucy hears his voice and delights. And I worry what he's going to do to her when he decides that she's not playing by his rules."

"So, he hooked a claw into me, right in the chest, and then he ripped. And I screamed. I remember that, but I don't remember much else. That, and I think he was really enjoying it. After what seemed like eternity, he grabbed the bracelet, pulled it off with one paw and then threw me into the pool with the other. It was like bathing in lye - every bit of me was in pain. I'm sure I was screaming, but I couldn't have, because I would have drowned. Somehow, I got my head above the water, and he was right there. 'Now, now, Eustace,' he said, 'this will be over in a little while.' And then he pushed me back under the water and held me there. And then there was only-"

"-the pain." Edmund echoed, and then continued. "Since it's the only thing you can expect, it becomes a sort of friend, and you appreciate it, because when it's there, it's the only thing you have to think about. Jadis understood that."

Eustace understood, perhaps better than anyone in Narnia at this point, why his cousin kept mostly to his own counsel, didn't speak much, and always kept his sword close by as they were journeying. He silently resolved to be more present for his cousin from that point forward.

"When I start remembering things again, I had gotten out of the pool, and the lion said, 'Behold! I make all things new.' He flicked a paw, and all the water ran off me and back into the pool until I was dry. As he was heading back into the wilderness, he told me there were clothes for me. I found them, put them on, headed back to the camp, you almost killed me, and here we are. Start to finish."

Edmund sat for a few moments, then grabbed his cousin in a hug, a hug that was returned, and that lasted for minutes between them. When at last they parted, the sun had nearly risen.

"Let's go find Lucy. I'm sure she'll want to hear all about Aslan."

"Yes, she will. But we'll give her the edited version, I think. For all we know, her innocence is the reason things haven't gone completely pear-shaped." Eustace chuckled.

"Don't tempt him. Oh, and welcome to the Church of Aslan."

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted as a comment at Ana Mardoll's Narnia Deconstruction.


End file.
